A letter from our founder · Shanghai, July 2026
Why we only do beauty, and why we do it alone
To the brand founders, CMOs and export directors reading this,
You are probably here because China is on your roadmap and you are trying to work out who to trust with it. So let me be direct about who we are, because the agencies pitching you all sound the same until you look at how they are actually built.
Cosmetics China Agency became fully independent in 2026. No network above us, no holding company deciding our margins, no sister agencies we are obliged to sell you. When we recommend Tmall over Douyin, or tell you your brand is not ready for China yet, that advice has no hidden owner. Independence is not a slogan for us; it is the reason our advice is worth paying for.
Behind that young independence sits 15 years of experience serving beauty brands in this market. Our team has taken French dermocosmetics through NMPA registration, rebuilt Tmall flagships around China’s festival calendar, and run KOL campaigns through every platform shift from Weibo’s golden age to Douyin overtaking Tmall in beauty GMV. We have made the expensive mistakes already, on campaigns long finished, so our clients do not make them on theirs.
We turn down briefs outside beauty, health and wellness. Every time. That refusal is the whole reason our clients hire us.
Specialization is our second conviction. A generalist agency learns your category on your budget. We work only on cosmetics, skincare, fragrance, health and wellness, which means the ingredient regulations, the claim restrictions, the Xiaohongshu review culture and the C-beauty competitors taking 57.4% of the market are things we already live in daily, not things we research after signing you.
And the third: the people you meet are the people who do the work. Our core team, Linda, Emma, Rebecca and myself, sits on your calls and inside your campaigns. There is no account-management layer translating between you and the practitioners, because in a market that moves as fast as China, every layer between decision and execution costs you a quarter.
What we ask of clients is the same honesty we offer. Tell us your real budget, your real timeline and your real ambition, and we will tell you what is achievable, including when the answer is “not yet”. The brands that have grown with us, from L’Oréal houses to independent labs entering China for the first time, stayed because we treated their money like it was ours.
If that sounds like the kind of partner you want in China, my door in Shanghai is open.
